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Shares dropped after the chairman of Swiss drug giant Roche said the company was no longer interested in buying Illumina. Roche had pursued a purchase of Illumina last year. It was rebuffed by Illumina's management, which branded the offer inadequate.

A rumor that Roche had made another bid for Illumina surfaced in December. Illumina shares peaked for the past year at $57 on Dec. 20. They fell as low as $28.72 almost a year ago.

The Illumina deal that has been in the works for a year is no more, Roche Chairman Franz Humer told the Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung.

“Illumina is definitively off the table,” Humer told the newspaper. “The other side wasn’t ready to retreat from their totally excessive price demands. Roche doesn’t do acquisitions that don’t create added value. We have self-discipline.”

Illumina rejected Roche’s $44.50-a-share hostile bid in January 2012 as well as a sweetened, $51-a-share proposal. Roche walked away after investors held out for an even higher offer. L’Agefi, a Swiss newspaper, reported last month that the companies had agreed to a $66-a-share deal.

“We do not believe this precludes Roche from returning to Illumina as a targeted asset in the future and does not diminish its attractiveness as a potential M&A target,” Ross Muken, a New York-based analyst for ISI Group, wrote in a note to investors late Sunday.

Alexander Klauser, a spokesman for Roche, confirmed Humer’s comments. Laura Trotter, Illumina’s director of corporate marketing, said in an email that the company had no comment on Roche.

Morningstar's Miller said in her note to clients that Illumina is "well-positioned" to succeed on its own.

"Armed with a suite of proven and established technologies, the firm should maintain a large share and expand its dominant presence in next-generation sequencing in the years ahead, in our opinion," Miller wrote.